BLU-95 / BLU-96 Fuel/Air Explosive (FAE)

Fuel/Air Explosive [FAE II] is an antimaterial/antimine weapon. The Naval Weapons Center at China Lake developed the 500-pound (BLU-95) and 2,000-pound (BLU-96) FAE IIs during the 1970s and 1980s as part of its family of FAE weapons (FAE I, SLU-FAE, MAD-FAE, CATFAE). The Surface-Launched Unit, Fuel-Air Explosive (SLU-FAE) was developed for the Marine Corps as a mine- and obstacle-breaching system; development of the Catapult-Launched FAE (CATFAE) system followed the termination of the SLU-FAE program. Unfortunately the overpressures generated were not high enough to reliably
detonate mines and had little effect on wire obstacles.